Postmortem
by TheMacUnleashed
Summary: Versé, one of Padmé's handmaidens, reflects on the week that led up to her death in Zam Wessel's assassination attempt. Oneshot.


Title: Postmortem  
Author: Mac  
Summary: One of Padmé Amidala's handmaidens reflects on the week that led up to her death in Zam Wessel's assassination attempt.  
Notes: Written for the 2010 Dare Challenge (held at the JCC forums). My dare was this:

Specifics: first person. Your narrator must be dead at start of story and still dead at the end.  
-Narrating character died (you choose how) and is little known, not much seen, but still actually him tell about the last week of his life... to a mouse.  
-must have at least two OC's.  
-other than the narrator, you are not allowed to kill anyone.  
-mention of campfire songs  
-have an exasperated character throw something important out of a window  
-parody a scene from a movie or novel.  
-a mechanical being must appear (but not speak)  
-Mandatory words: abysmal, galimatias, tenacious, swank, and closure  
-a broken watch/chrono device  
-a flickering lamp  
-at some point during the story, it must rain

* * *

It was peaceful here on Naboo, where I sat. My Lady Padmé Amidala's home was many miles north of where I was. She vacationed in a beautiful place, but it wasn't nearly as isolated as I wished. Here, it was virtually silent, a clearing in a ring of tall trees. There were none of the lumbering beasts which shared her fields. This was forest, not farmland.

Neither Padmé nor any of my fellow handmaidens had really understood why I liked the cool woods so much, but I hadn't been bothered by that. Dormé had always loved the open plains and fields, while Moteé had held no love for the lakes, but cherished time at the oceans. The forests were my haven, and they understood that.

I was glad that my family had chosen to scatter my ashes here. It was much nicer than Coruscant.

A tiny mouse chirped from where it must have been eyelevel to my feet, startling me. I knelt forwards, away from the comfortable tree I had been leaning against. "Hello."

There was no verbal response, but it looked up at me and blinked small, dark eyes. "I don't think I've seen you before." In the week or so that I'd been wandering this place, it seemed as though many of its creatures were deliberately avoiding me. Perhaps they could sense me, and found my presence to be too… unnatural for their tastes.

"Anyhow, it's nice to have some company." I carefully lowered myself down onto my stomach, not wanting to startle away the mouse. "I haven't gotten the chance to talk to someone in quite awhile." My death had skewered my sense of time, but I was fairly confident it had been weeks since the assassination attempt on Padmé. "Death can be lonely, I suppose."

A wave of nostalgia engulfed me. Since the explosion, I had lived –no, that wasn't right; existed was a better word-- in a sort of haze. I hadn't allowed myself to really look back and think about what had happened. "I don't regret it, I suppose. I always knew that one day I might be required to give up my life for Padmé. I would never have become a handmaiden if I hadn't. But after everything, I do wish that it had come a bit later."

Memories of what had happened during the final week of my life hit me suddenly, and I looked at the mouse, smiling slightly. "This could take awhile, my friend.

"It began on the seventh day before we arrived on Coruscant. Padmé had just received the summons that the presence of a delegation from Naboo was required at a vote concerning the building of an army for the Republic. I don't think that she was too happy at the summons, and not just because of the content about a war. You see, we weren't on Naboo like we usually were." Padmé wasn't required to maintain a constant presence on Coruscant, and since none of us were fond of the abysmal city, much of her work was spent on Naboo or on another planet in the Chommel Sector. "Instead, we were on Jaciprus. Perhaps you've heard of it?" I gave a small laugh as I realized how absurd this was; a ghost talking to a mouse, like it was a person.

I stopped when the mouse made a high-pitched chirping sound, like it had understood. "Was that a 'yes' or a 'no'? I can't tell. Well, in case you haven't, most of Jaciprus doesn't make for a nice vacationing spot. There are no forests; only bluffs and plateaus. In some places it must be nice and fertile, because it rains a lot, but there was almost no vegetation were I was, with Padmé and my fellow handmaidens, on a survival mission. We took them once or twice a year, just to stay in shape. The chances of an attack on a Senator are quite high, and it's best to be prepared, should one ever happen on a planet that consists more of wilderness than city.

"And, to tell you the truth, they were also a time to get away from most politics. Padmé spent most of her time working very hard. Vacations were a luxury, although she certainly could have afforded to take them more than she did. The survival missions were a way for her to get away from everything that took place in the Senate, but to still be spending her time doing something meaningful.

"The survival missions weren't exactly camping, but they were close enough. We sang campfire songs at nighttime, and we actually cooked food over fires, instead of just eating those tasteless ration packets. This time it wasn't that enjoyable, though. It was raining every day, and it was pouring when we received the message saying that Padmé should be on Coruscant in a week.

"So there we were -Dormé, Padmé, Cordé, Moteé and I, standing in the rain next to our tiny campsite, looking at each other as we wondered what Padmé would do. We could tell that she was slightly concerned by the summons; it was easy, because we all were. Annoyed as well; this was our time away from work, when we couldn't take a vacation, and now look what was happening! An army being built. I don't know whether Padmé has voted on that yet in the Senate –probably, since a few weeks must have passed—but I hope she chose her stance carefully.

"Moteé was the one to break the silence. 'Well, I for one, propose that we not spend all of our time here in the rain! It's less than a day's travel to get to Famern. Why not spend a few nights there? It'll take two days to get to Coruscant, so we still have five to spend here, and I'd much rather we were dry throughout all of them.'

"Famern is a city on Jaciprus. Moteé was right; we were about a day's travel from it.

"I assumed that somebody would protest, or that Padmé would insist that we complete the mission, but she was tired of the wilderness, too. 'Well,' she said, looking at us, 'if nobody has any protests, than I don't see why not. It's late right now, but if we can get through one more night of camping out, what do you think of heading out to spend four days in the city?'

"We all thought it was a great idea, the best one we'd heard since arriving on Jaciprus. We settled in early, and went to sleep, and when we woke up –the sixth day before my death—we headed out to the city. We had to walk a few miles before we hit a transportation station that was part of the reservation we were staying on. From there, it was easy to take a speeder to Famern.

"Famern is like a tiny, cleaner version of Coruscant. It's fairly busy, but not nearly as crowded. That's probably because Jaciprus is a small planet in the first place, and Famern just rises up from the desert –it's in the middle of nowhere, really.

"We arrived at the city in the evening, when we found a hotel. It wasn't too extravagant, but it was nice. Padmé certainly could have afforded better, but this wasn't an official vacation from her senatorial duties. I think she felt slightly guilty about spending the money.

"We stayed in that night, just getting room service and going to bed. We had been on the survival mission for three days before we ditched it for the city, and since it had been raining throughout all of them, well; let's just say we were exceedingly glad to have somewhere dry to sleep." The wide plateaus we had been on had virtually no cover, and the emergency tents apparently weren't as waterproof as they claimed.

"It was on the fifth day before I died that we did most of our sightseeing. Everything was man-made, but some of the buildings were beautiful. That was a fun day –the last one that I had that was really 'normal,' I suppose you'd say.

"The fourth day before I died started out normally. It ended with me falling in love.

"We had hit the museums and most of the historical tourist attractions the day before, so we decided to just let loose and try browsing around the malls for a bit. We spent most of the afternoon doing that, until finally it was the evening, and we decided to have a night out. I guess it sounds a bit… frivolous when I say it out loud, but we were entitled to a break now and then! Padmé had it the worst of all of us, with her being Senator, but it was a taxing thing, working as a handmaiden. We'd have to appear at balls and very snobby receptions every now and then, but those hardly counted. None of us enjoyed them.

"And it wasn't like we were partying wildly. We were just in a small nightclub; slow, by the standards of Coruscant, but normal for the rest of the galaxy. We planned to go in, relax, and return to our hotel rooms at the end of our night. And I guess that is what happened, in a way, but the details were changed.

"There wasn't much going on in the club at first. People were keeping to their groups, not socializing much, and we were no exception to that. We talked amongst ourselves for a little while; just laughing and relaxing, but eventually, as the night wore on, we started to break apart and go our own ways. Moteé and Padmé decided to go out on the dance floor, Dormé wandered off –she retired early, I think- and Cordé was engaged in a discussion about politics with someone she had just met." Small talk was Cordé's strong suit; even with all the galimatias surrounding her, she could always hold a good conversation.

"So I was alone, content to wait until the others were ready to leave, when a man bumped into me, splashing his drink.

"'I'm so sorry!' he apologized immediately. 'I should have been much more careful.' He was very gracious to me, without the swank that many had, and we instantly struck up a conversation. His name was Salvare.

"I know how this sounds –as though there's no reason for me to be saying this; after all, it was just a single meeting in a club—but it was more than that. We danced together that night; I stayed late, after the rest of the handmaidens, and Padmé, had already gone. Salvare was in local politics. He was working to help preserve Jaciprus's nature and history. He was so kind…" My mind filled with memories of him, how soft and dark his hair was; how green his eyes had been.

"The night had to end, of course, and we parted ways as the club closed. We made arrangements to meet again the following night –he knew I'd only be on planet for one more night after this one, and then I would leave to go to the core of the galaxy.

"On the third day before I died; on our final full day on Jaciprus, we wasted time together. Moteé and Dormé, in particular, heckled me about the man I had stayed out late with, begging for details. They both agreed to come with me to the club that night, just so I'd have an excuse in case things didn't go smoothly. Then we went out for dinner, to a restaurant that Moteé had somehow found out about.

"I was keeping close watch on my personal chrono device, of course, and I thought that I was doing just fine… until I looked outside. It was an hour past when I was supposed to have met Salvare! My chrono had broken, and I hadn't even realized it.

"As soon as Moteé and Dormé saw that I was late, they hustled me into an air-taxi. I remember that part quite clearly!" Dormé had been neatening me up, while Moteé tried to fix my watch. It hadn't gone so well –she ended up throwing it out the window of the air-taxi in frustration! Thankfully, the droid driver hadn't commented.

"And then we got there and… he wasn't there. I was too late.

"I wanted to leave, and just go to the hotel and be alone, but Dormé and Moteé wouldn't let me. They insisted that I stay and wait, and so we took a seat at the table in the corner that Salvare and I had promised to meet at, the one right beneath the flickering lamp.

"We sat there for some time, watching people dancing around us, as Dormé and Moteé spoke reassurances to me. They had a tenacious hold over me. Without it, I never would have stayed there.

"Half an hour went and when I think even the two of them were getting worn down, the doors to the club opened up and Salvare entered! You should have seen the look on his face; so worried, and then he saw me sitting in the corner, and his eyes grew wide and he hurried over. He smiled and nodded at Moteé and Dormé and said, 'I hate to interrupt you, but nobody puts Versé in the corner.'

"Maybe my transcript of that makes it sound foolish, but it was perfect when he said it. I blushed and stood, and he took my hand and brought me to the front of the club. I never would have done it on my own, but being with him gave me courage, and we danced in front of all those people.

"I would have stayed with him for much longer if I could have, but on the second day before I died, we had to leave. We needed to be on Coruscant on time, and although Padmé said that I could stay if I really wished to, I knew my duties.

"So I parted with Salvare, and he promised not to forget me, and I promised I'd contact him as soon as I came to Coruscant... but that never happened. The second day and the final day before I died were spent the same way: traveling through hyperspace to Coruscant so that Padmé could vote in the Senate bill. And on the day I died, I switched ships, along with Cordé, and we pretended to be Padmé, just in case somebody was trying to hurt her.

"And I guess they were."

I fell out of my memories. "Thank you for listening, my fine mouse friend," I added. "I think talking about it helped a bit... maybe it brought some closure."

Above me, the sun shone brightly through the trees, and I felt a peace deeper than any since I had died. "Thank you very much, indeed."


End file.
